Technologies
Covid-related health regulations, including social distancing and lockdowns, prompted extensive use of virtual communication technologies. These platforms, mainly Zoom and WhatsApp video, were widely adopted by businesses, professionals, and for private communications. Zou, Zhao, and Siau (2020) observed that many businesses developed their online presence during the Covid-19 pandemic, and in many respects, mobile and teleworking technologies have been employed to keep the world functioning. They claim that this newfound exposure to, and experience with, innovative technologies for remote work and online education options will likely propel the world’s businesses into a new phase of technology innovation, evolution, and revolution. The result of this technological shift will be that work from home (or from other remote locations) will become common, and management of remote employees and distributed teams will require a new repertoire of technological and managerial skills. These authors offer a new perspective on managerial development, but we can imagine that for many people, workers, and managers, the need to meet new job requirements constitutes an additional source of stress and anxiety.
Restrictions and self-protecting measures triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic have created a huge need for remote healthcare services across the world. Before the Covid-19 pandemic, telemedicine and eHealth approaches were being developed and tested in a gradual fashion, with many studies focusing on lessons learned and barriers to the use of digital solutions (e.g., Zachrison, Boggs, Hayden, Espinola, & Camargo, 2020). Overnight, however, it has become imperative to develop means that allow healthcare providers to remotely treat or support people with non-urgent or long-term conditions. As a result, healthcare systems are being transformed. Telemedicine is being used to demand-manage the flow of patients with respiratory distress accessing emergency departments; video consultations are being introduced in multiple settings; and the use of social media is being discussed positively for its potential to direct people to trusted resources, to counteract misinformation, and to provide psychological first aid (Eccleston, Blyth, Dear, Fisher, Keefe, Lynch, … & de Williams, 2020). These researchers, for example, provide guidelines and specific guidance for healthcare professionals caring for patients with chronic pain, attempting to rapidly transition to remote care with technology.
The situation in psychology is somewhat similar to medicine. Remote psychological diagnosis and treatment has been available and studied with moderate interest over the last two decades. Brown (2002) developed a remote psychological diagnosis and monitoring system almost two decades ago, many tools to support online practice have been developed, and research works on this topic have been published since then, including the groundbreaking book by Weinberg and Rolnick, Theory and practice of online therapy: Internet-delivered interventions for individuals, families, groups, and organizations, published in 2019.
Although the potential importance of remote psychological interventions has been acknowledged for many years and several very extensive works, such as this book, have been published, online practice has not yet realized its full potential due to the reluctance and resistance of therapists and consultants (Silberberg, 2016). In psychology, like in medicine, the Covid-19 pandemic created a twofold demand for remote psychological interventions. There is a demand for treatment of the stress, anxiety, and fears elicited by the pandemic (see e.g., Jiang, Deng, Zhu, Tao, Liu, … & Ji, 2020, who studied crisis intervention during the Covid-19 pandemic in China), yet there is also a need for new solutions to support ongoing interventions that could not proceed as usual because of restrictions and protective measures by practitioners and patients (e.g., Liu, Gu, Shao, Liang, Yue, Cheng, & Zhang, 2020).
